Passports,
Disease Surveillance and Breeding:
A Consultative Paper For The Equestrian Industry Available At
www.bef.co.uk

Since
the Minister for Rural Affairs, The Rt Hon Alun Michael, made his
statement on 14 February 2002, regarding the Government's wish for
all horses to have passports and for a Disease Surveillance database
to be established, there has been a great deal of speculation about
the outcome. In particular concerns have been expressed about the
costs of such passports and the imposition of more bureaucracy upon
the equine industry.

The
BEF offered to lead an industry team to develop a plan for the Minister's
consideration to avoid:

The
BEF chaired Implementation Planning Team has been working very hard
since the announcement and has to-day published on its web-site
(www.bef.co.uk) a consultative document containing the suggested
principles to be included in the plan to be presented to the Minister
by 30 June 2002.

BEFs
Chairman, and Planning Team Chairman, Philip Billington said:

"We
hope that individuals and organisations will study the consultative
paper and let us have their views using the online feedback form
available on the BEF web-site. There is still a good deal of work
to do but a huge amount has been achieved in a very short period
of time. We have not yet been able to define the costs to owners;
this work is ongoing. We will update the paper and present more
detail on www.bef.co.uk
as it becomes available. In the meantime we are grateful for all
of the work that has been undertaken by representatives of the entire
industry in getting to this stage. I am particularly grateful to
the members of the Implementation Planning Team for their input
to this complex piece of work."